


Non-Player Character

by writingandchocolatemilk



Series: UsUk Oneshots [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alfred F. Jones - Freeform, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Humans, Alternate Universe - Video Game World, Arthur Kirkland - Freeform, M/M, USUK - Freeform, gerita - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 20:30:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3182129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingandchocolatemilk/pseuds/writingandchocolatemilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"For the love of God, if someone offers you a way out, take it."</p><p>-- Alfred the Knight</p>
            </blockquote>





	Non-Player Character

**Author's Note:**

> Prize Fic for [rinkagaminer](http://tmblr.co/m6-OmBwqnLzHMTJHDkNU65w)!

"For the love of God, if someone offers you a way out,  _take it_."

\-- Alfred the Knight

…

Well, it certainly wasn’t what they usually caught. This one looked foreign, too blue and black for the forests Alfred and his gang traversed. Only two legs and whiskers. Huh.

“Do they usually have whiskers?” Alfred said, putting his foot on the dragon’s throat and tilting its head. “All these weird fur-like things?”

Ludwig didn’t respond, too busy retying the dragon’s legs. Feliciano—NPC who Ludwig let tag around—was braiding the dragon’s mane. Some of the others were wandering around, checking their supplies in the wagon. Well, then, fuck this.

“Don’t bother tying it up,” Alfred commanded, kicking the beast’s head away. It growled, and Alfred let out a mock roar, grinning at the surrounding snickers. “Kill it. It’d take too long to haul around, anyways. Same ol’, same ol’. Teeth, eyes—“

“But, Alfred,” Feliciano stood, carefully stepping around the broken wings, “We never see anything like him! I bet your Mage friend would be really, really interested in drawing him or studying him. Remember the unicorn?”

Oh, yes, the unicorn Alfred had to haul around for over a year. Arthur had explained that it would take another year for the fucking thing to grow a horn, and he didn’t have the resources to care for it. So, Alfred had agreed to let the thing tag along. It ate too much of food and was skittish with the horses.

“Yeah, I remember Snowy,” Alfred grumbled. “But we have to make it to Arthur before he switches locations. We have to hurry—Ludwig, you can do the honors!” Alfred tossed the Player his sword. “You could use the XP, anyways.”

By the time darkness had fallen, Alfred worried it would have been quicker to drag the thing behind the caravan. Ludwig had explained once to Alfred and once to the tearful Feliciano that the dragon had some unique anatomy and something or another and they had to harvest all of it.

“ _All_ of it?” Alfred called out of his makeshift tent.

“Unless you want to pitch in,” Ludwig yelled back, “Then I would _pack_.”

“Feliciano, could you stop sobbing?” Alfred asked brightly. “It was just a dragon. Look, I’m sure Arthur has something else for you. Maybe a cat or another one of those dogs Ludwig keeps, too. We couldn’t have kept it alive, anyways.”

Feliciano refolded the same shirt, the wrong way once again. “Oh, dragons aren’t so bad. We didn’t have to kill it.”

That’s what he said about every beast Alfred killed. Didn’t matter if it was a dragon that had just destroyed a city or one of those flying-cow-things that they usually had for dinner. If it was alive and someone killed it, Feliciano cried. NPCs killed Alfred.

Finally, after a day of waiting around for the dragon to be cleaned, Alfred’s party started moving again. Alfred didn’t stick around to listen to the other Player’s chat. It was all the same: the game, the XP, the homes. It was so much better to race through the trees and the streams, loosing himself in the static air.

It was something his home—the real world, whatever Players chose to call it—didn’t have. While home had skyscrapers and huge bridges, this place was wild. Trees that stretched on into forever, where no one had seen the sky. Seas that no one had ever returned from. Caves that turned into tundra that turned into deserts. If it wasn’t for the battles and the looming threat of death, Alfred would have loved to trudge through every swamp and dungeon this place offered.

Distantly, distantly, Alfred remembered. His brand new car, his college acceptance letter, the new game console in celebration. A brother, a mother—

Then his horse skidded to a halt, whinnying at the thin air. Ah, this was new. Alfred led his horse around , watching as the faint sunlight shimmered against some sort of barrier. Last year, it had been a river with burning water. While Alfred ran after adventure, Arthur closed himself in.

“Knock, knock!”

No reply, but Alfred knew he was watching. Alfred scoffed, hopping of his horse and approaching the barrier. Usually, Arthur was all show. This thing probably wouldn’t even—

“Don’t touch that.”

Alfred retracted his hand, grinning. “Did you miss me? I brought you a bunch of goodies. Yesterday, we found this weird whiskered dragon thing. Stripped it bare just for you. Took an extra day.”

Arthur stood a few feet away from the shimmering, absent-mindedly fixing his hair as he smirked. A year hadn’t done much—it rarely did. Arthur’s hair was shorter, neater. He wasn’t using his good hand, which was weird. He held it firmly by his side, hidden under his cloak.

“You probably ruined whatever was of value,” Arthur said in greeting. “If it was whiskered, it was from the south. Thank you for killing it—they were going extinct, anyways. God knows leaving one living,” Arthur shook his head, mock aghast.

What a dick. “Did you miss me?” Alfred asked, leaning on his horse. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed your angry eyes and your angry voice and your angry… Angry. What is this, anyways—“

“Do _not_ touch that.” Arthur flicked his hand, and the barrier bled into the trees. “That will kill you, if you’re leveled high enough. How many other Players have you killed, Alfred?”

“Asks the man who has a creepy death thing,” Alfred breathed, carefully stepping closer to Arthur. “I rode ahead of the rest of them.”

Arthur shrugged and turned, motioning for Alfred to follow. “Are they better than those other sots you brought along ten years ago? The ones who went about plundering around the NPC villages for loot or whatever they did.”

Alfred rolled his eyes. “What is everyone’s hang up on NPCs? God—there’s this Player who’s traveling with me, Ludwig, this beast, he fights awesome, kills shit left and right and doesn’t have the guts yet to go around killing people. He brought this—this—NPC that cries all the time. It’s ridiculous. They’re not people.”

“Alfred, you’re practically a NPC yourself,” Arthur snapped, glaring over his shoulder. “You should hear the Players that come through here. They all know about Alfred the Knight, he who has been all around this land and has yet to kill a single Player.”

“Fuck off. I’m not coming back next year.”

“Good, it’ll be just like _last_ year.”

“Oh, my God, what the fuck did you do to your tent?”

Arthur’s looked tent more like someone had ripped out a room from an apartment building and placed it in the middle of the woods. Hell, maybe that’s what Arthur had done. It wasn’t unheard of for high-level mages to summon things from the real world. But this tent-apartment thing was ridiculous. Bare, concrete walls made up the structure, riddled with pipes that led to nowhere, a door with a number nailed on.

“Did you install electricity?” Alfred poked at an exposed wire. “Fuck, can you even _do_ that in here? In… The game, I mean. Christ, I liked your tent better. This is just…” Alfred stood in front of the door, cautiously reaching out.

Hadn’t he lived in New York? Tiny apartments, leaky faucets, hazy skylines?

Arthur leaned against the door frame, knocking on the door. “The Moderators don’t see it. Fantastic. They can’t recognize it, so they walk right by. The computer doesn’t understand ‘apartment,’ so even the Players can’t report it.” Arthur’s slight smile turned into a familiar scowl. He kicked the door. “Oi! Open up!”

The Shop Boy opened the door, raising an eyebrow, annoyed. “What can I get you?”

Alfred groaned, pushing the NPC aside and shooting a look at Arthur. “What the fuck is up with you people and NPCs? They aren’t people. They’re just…” He scowled at The Shop Boy, “Code. Fake. Get me a Coke.”

“His name is Peter,” Arthur muttered.

Peter raised his other eyebrow. “I’m afraid we don’t have any Coke available.” 

Alfred felt like he was in a dream. Arthur removed his cloak to reveal a sweater vest. Peter was wearing dinosaur pajamas. There was a stairwell leading upstairs, and a cup of cold tea was on the kitchen counter. Alfred the Knight felt very out of place in his clunky armor and unwashed hair.

“Armor off if you want to walk on the carpet,” Arthur said, walking into the kitchen.

Numbly, Alfred did as instructed. There was a ceiling fan. There was a cat curled up on the couch. It was warm—there was heating, something other than a fire. It smelled, well, a little like bleach. Alfred sat down, ass hitting soft carpeting.

Twenty-five years. He hadn’t felt a carpet in twenty-five fucking years.

“Bloody hell, are you crying?” Arthur was leaning on the counter, smirking at Alfred. “I didn’t think you’d miss me that much. It’s not much. Took forever to figure out how to code the—“

“Code?” Alfred’s head snapped up.

“Yes, Alfred, _code_ —“

“That will get you killed,” Alfred stood, marching over to the fridge. “Holy shit—is that Wonder Bread?” He shut the door, turning to face Arthur. “That’s amazing. Wonder Bread.” He let out a short, barking laugh.

Silence. Alfred watched Arthur, grinning at the dorky vest and the knitted socks. The toss of the other’s head, proud and regal like the king he should have been. A year.

“Want to make out?”

“Focus,” Arthur muttered. _Too_ quickly. He totally wanted to make out.

Arthur held out his arm, the one with the Display on it. He had fucked it up beyond belief. Instead of the screen neatly embedded in his skin, Arthur had picked away at the surrounding flesh. Wires mixed in with the surrounding veins, disappearing into the muscle of his forearm. The whole area was surrounded by a painful looking red.

“Christ, what did you do to yourself?” Alfred approached, taking Arthur’s arm. He ran his fingers over the screen, whistling. “You’ve gone crazy out here. Does it still display your Stats and XP? Why—“

“I found a way for us to get out, but we have to destroy our in-game bodies to do so,” Arthur explained, tapping the screen. “It’s not… Pretty. Fucking hurts.”

Alfred couldn’t breathe. He dropped Arthur’s arm stepping away. “Leave? You can’t leave. We—no one can leave. That’s suicide. Francis—“

Arthur turned around, throwing the cold cup of tea into the sink. It shattered, and he cursed. “This is different. They said you couldn’t mess with the coding and I did, Alfred!” He turned back around, hand wrapped around his forearm. “We can make it. I know we can.”

“Arthur, your arm looks half ready to fall off, and we just can’t try to go. Not after Francis—“

“This is different than Francis, Alfred, it can work. I waited, and I perfected it.” Arthur gripped his hand harder, and it must have hurt, but he just kept nodding and looking so sadly at Alfred. “It can work.”

Alfred's back hit the fridge. God, castles were so much bigger than this freaking kitchen. You could breathe in a castle, not in a tiny apartment. It was too hot. Where the hell was Ludwig and—

“Alfred?”

“Home? Arthur, why didn’t you just…” Alfred searched for the word. “Go?”


End file.
